Washington, D.C.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly during the Cold War period, Czech and Slovak organizations in Washington, D.C. were amongst the most vocal in their calls for reform back in Czechoslovakia. To this day, Washington, D.C. plays home to a number of America’s most active Czech and Slovak societies. The capital’s Czech and Slovak Embassies provide these organizations with a place to meet and promote Czech and Slovak culture and ideas.
Did you miss the NCSML at the Czech Embassy in March? If so, don't worry - you can view a clip from the event here.
Here are the stories of some of the Czechs and Slovaks who settled in Washington, D.C.:
November 08, 2011
Michlean Amir was born in 1940 in Nimes, France to Czech Jewish parents. She lived in Plzeň, Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1948 when she emigrated to Israel with her parents and younger sister. Michlean then moved with her family to Rochester, New York in 1955. Today, she is an archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and lives in Rockville, Maryland.
August 17, 2011
Vera Borkovec was born in Brno in 1926 and lived in Prague until 1934 when she moved to Tehran with her family. They returned to Czechoslovakia following WWII, but left the country in July 1949 after the rise of the Communist party. She first immigrated to Bolivia, and later arrived in the United States in 1952, eventually settling in the Washington, D.C. area. Vera was a professor of Russian language and literature at American University for over 30 years.
September 22, 2011
Matt Carnogursky was born in Bratislava in 1960. He left the country in 1983, shortly before graduating with an engineering degree from technical university. He emigrated to Canada where an uncle lived, earned his degree, and began working for an aerospace company. Matt and his family have lived in Nigeria, Budapest, Slovakia, and the United States. He, his wife Gaby, and their eight children live in northern Virginia.
November 22, 2010
Zdenek David was born in Blatná, South Bohemia, in May 1931. He left Czechoslovakia in 1947, when he gained a one-year scholarship to complete his secondary education at the Putney School in Vermont. When the Communist takeover happened in 1948, his parents urged him not to return home. Zdenek was invited to work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 1974. He works there to this day, now as the senior scholar.
June 16, 2011
Helena Fabry was born in Hradec Králové, Bohemia in 1925. Her father was a cabinet maker, while her mother stayed at home and raised Helena and her younger sister Věra. Helena graduated from business school in Hradec Králové during WWII and was assigned a job at the local supplies bureau. She was involved in local amateur theater which, she says, helped her through WWII.
July 27, 2010
Joe went to school in Nové Mesto nad Váhom and, as a keen sportsman, gained a place at Charles University’s Faculty of Physical Education in Prague upon graduation. He studied there for one month until his father died and, Joe says, money ran out. In 1961, Joe entered the Czechoslovak Army and was sent to the officers’ academy in Nitra. He left Czechoslovakia in 1969.
December 06, 2011
Thomas Gibian was born in Prague in 1922. He was attending boarding school in Britain when Nazi forces took control of Czechoslovakia and his family decided to leave. They arrived in the United States in November 1940. Thomas joined the Czechoslovak 312 squadron of the British Royal Air Force. He earned a doctoral degree in chemistry and spent his career in the chemical industry. Today he lives in Sandy Spring, Maryland.
November 16, 2011
Kveta Gregor-Schlosberg was born in Jičín in 1925. She moved to Prague with her family at the age of ten where she took ballet lessons and danced at the National Theatre. Kveta left Czechoslovakia in 1945 following her first marriage, but she returned for a visit in 1947 and was unable to leave when her father was arrested following the Communist coup. In 1949, left for the United States and settled in Washington, D.C. where she lives today.
September 02, 2011
Oliver Gunovsky was born in Trenčín, western Slovakia in 1944. He lived with his grandparents for a few years after his father left the country illegally and his mother relocated to Liptovský Hrádok. When he was eight, he moved to be with his mother. Oliver received a travel visa in August 1968 to visit his father in England, and following the Warsaw Pact invasion, he decided not to return to Czechoslovakia. After England, Oliver lived in Canada for 11 years. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.
July 22, 2011
Otomar Hájek was born in Belgrade in 1930. He spent his childhood in several different places because of his father's military career. Otomar moved back to Prague in 1945 where he began a career in mathematics and engineering. He and his wife, Olga, left Czechoslovakia in 1966 when he was offered a position at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland for one year. Today, they live in Fredericksburg, VA.
July 26, 2011
Thomas Hasler was born in Prague in 1941. His father, Karel Hašler, was a popular Czech entertainer who was arrested by the Gestapo and killed in a concentration camp one month after Thomas was born. Thomas and his mother, Charlotte Jurdová, left Czechoslovakia for Australia in 1949, and later came to the United States in 1958. Thomas enjoyed a career in journalism and has lived in Baltimore for more than 40 years.
November 08, 2010
Charles Heller was born Ota Karel Heller in Prague, in January of 1936. His father, Rudolph, was the owner of a clothing manufacturing firm in Kojetice near Prague. With the outbreak of WWII, the clothing factory was seized by the Nazis and handed to an ethnic German. Charles’ father fled Czechoslovakia in 1940 and made it to Palestine, where he joined the British Army, and eventually fought as part of the British Army’s Czechoslovak Division.
September 08, 2011
Martin Herman was born in České Budějovice in 1948 and moved to Prague a few months later with his parents. He loved sports as a child, and grew to be an excellent tennis player. In 1974, Martin was allowed to travel to Germany to visit with an old family friend, Frau Manzer. He stayed there for over a year before moving to the United States. Martin worked for the World Bank for many years and today is an international consultant.
November 22, 2011
Lubomir Hromadka grew up in Jičín, northeastern Bohemia. Shortly after the Communist coup in February 1948, Lubomir participated in a student march supporting the former president Beneš. After the march, he feared arrest and left Czechoslovakia, spending one year in Ludwigsburg refugee camp before immigrating to Brazil. In 1957, Lubomir moved to Cleveland where he led a brass band and was involved in Czech theatre.
December 29, 2010
Peter Hruby was born in Prague in June, 1921. Unable to attend university during WWII, he went to work in a factory in Chotěboř. He went into exile in August 1948. Peter settled in Geneva and completed his university education there. It was at this time he founded the journal ‘Skutečnost’, which he says today is one of his proudest achievements.
December 01, 2011
Viera Jamrich was born in Nitra, western Slovakia, in 1952. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, Viera and her mother immigrated to Vancouver; however, they returned less than one year later. Viera studied mechanical engineering at the Slovak Technical University. In 1982, she left the country for a second time when she took a trip to Turkey. Today, she works for the U.S. Postal Service and lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
July 05, 2011
Jan Kocvara was born in 1946 in Trnava, Slovakia. After immigrating to London in 1979, he worked as a broadcaster for BBC Radio. He left the UK after five years when he began feeling unsafe following a number of attacks on radio employees. After working for Voice of America in Washington, D.C., Jan now teaches Slovak language classes at the Foreign Service Institute and lives in McLean, Virginia.
December 15, 2011
Frank Lysy was born in Spišské Vlachy, Eastern Slovakia in February 1916. Shortly before WWII, he became a student at Comenius University (also known at the time as Slovak University). Following the War, Frank took a job at the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry in Prague. He resigned from his post at the embassy in Oslo, Norway in February 1949. Frank arrived in the United States with his family the following year. He worked for the CIA and then Voice of America for a further 30 years.
June 06, 2011
Lucia Maruska was born in Cífer, Slovakia, in 1953. When she was four, she moved with her family to Bratislava. Her father emigrated in 1963. Lucia’s mother tried to find a means for the rest of the family to emigrate legally. In 1967, the family received permission to travel to Bulgaria; they went instead to the Yugoslav border with Italy. They were caught at the border, but successfully claimed asylum in Austria on their way back to Czechoslovakia.
January 11, 2011
Vojtech Mastny was born in Prague in 1936. He attended the first years of secondary school but was unable to pursue his education further because of school reforms in the early 1950s. He obtained his degree from Charles University in 1962, after being sent to work as a mechanic and on a collective farm. He is considered today to be one of the foremost American authorities on the Cold War and Soviet Affairs.